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Pondering....
Aug. 29th, 2009 02:10 pmI heard about something called the "Raw Food Diet" on Talk of the Nation yesterday, which intrigued me enough to dig a little deeper. Excerpt from the interview:
This is an experiment in which rats were given their regular chow pellets in two different forms. One was the ordinary pellet, and the other was with air added. They were puffed up. It's as if you took a grain of wheat and then puffed it off into puffed wheat.
RAEBURN: No nutrients added or subtracted, just air.
Dr. WRANGHAM: That's the only thing, air. And the experimenters were very careful. They gave exactly the same number of calories as measured - you know, the same weight of food to two groups of rats. And they measured how much locomotion they expended, and it was the same. So, same number of calories, same locomotor expenditure - you'd think that they would grow at the same rates. But the ones that ate the softer food grew faster, ended up heavier and had 30 percent more body fat.
RAEBURN: It can't be true.
Dr. WRANGHAM: So they grew obese.
RAEBURN: It can't be.
(Soundbite of laughter)
RAEBURN: It can't be true.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. WRANGHAM: Well, you see, this is where the costs of digestion come in. It's so important, because they could actually show where the difference was. And the difference is this: that after a meal, the rats that ate the softer food had a lower rise in body temperature than those that ate the harder food. Their metabolic rate was lower because their bodies were working less hard, because there was less to do. They didn't have to soften their food.
And this is a wonderful little model, I think, for all sorts of examples in the human case. When we turn our beef into ground beef - just like hunters and gatherers who cook their meat and then pound it, what we're doing is making it easier for our bodies to digest the food and therefore sparing our bodies the need to waste energy, calories, on digesting the food. And the result is that the net caloric gain is greater when we eat food that has been more highly processed.
As the name implies, one gives up eating cooked food and instead eats only raw foods. By virtue of necessity, this turns out to be a vegetarian diet and can even be vegan if one gives up dairy products as well. The pros seem to be quick weight loss and a reduction in sodium and cholesterol levels. The cons are a lack of certain essential nutrients obtained almost solely through animal products, such as certain proteins and fats; the need to eat a whole lot more than one ordinarily eats to maintain weight rather than lose it; and a whole lot of prep time to make juices or otherwise prepare the raw foods in a pleasing palatable fashion.
The focus of yesterday's interview itself was "how cooking made us human", and the raw food diet issue was addressed specifically in answer to a caller's question. The general impression I got from the interview and from the subsequent internet research was that a diet of strictly raw food would not be a good idea over an extended period of time, or as a way of life. But for brief stretches of time, it might be good as a cleansing or detoxing regimen. So I'm considering giving it a go during the week that spouse is gone, albeit in a modified fashion. I can eat big salads for lunch and dinner; oats or other cereal and a boiled egg for breakfast; raw veggies such as carrots and cucumber for snackies, as well as fresh fruit; and my usual (store-bought) fruit juices and dairy products like milk or cheese tossed in there for good measure. JuicePlus should keep me from losing out on most nutrients.
Articles:
From WebMD.
From about.com.
From LiveScience.
From Steve Pavlina's blog.
From the Diet Library.
This is an experiment in which rats were given their regular chow pellets in two different forms. One was the ordinary pellet, and the other was with air added. They were puffed up. It's as if you took a grain of wheat and then puffed it off into puffed wheat.
RAEBURN: No nutrients added or subtracted, just air.
Dr. WRANGHAM: That's the only thing, air. And the experimenters were very careful. They gave exactly the same number of calories as measured - you know, the same weight of food to two groups of rats. And they measured how much locomotion they expended, and it was the same. So, same number of calories, same locomotor expenditure - you'd think that they would grow at the same rates. But the ones that ate the softer food grew faster, ended up heavier and had 30 percent more body fat.
RAEBURN: It can't be true.
Dr. WRANGHAM: So they grew obese.
RAEBURN: It can't be.
(Soundbite of laughter)
RAEBURN: It can't be true.
(Soundbite of laughter)
Dr. WRANGHAM: Well, you see, this is where the costs of digestion come in. It's so important, because they could actually show where the difference was. And the difference is this: that after a meal, the rats that ate the softer food had a lower rise in body temperature than those that ate the harder food. Their metabolic rate was lower because their bodies were working less hard, because there was less to do. They didn't have to soften their food.
And this is a wonderful little model, I think, for all sorts of examples in the human case. When we turn our beef into ground beef - just like hunters and gatherers who cook their meat and then pound it, what we're doing is making it easier for our bodies to digest the food and therefore sparing our bodies the need to waste energy, calories, on digesting the food. And the result is that the net caloric gain is greater when we eat food that has been more highly processed.
As the name implies, one gives up eating cooked food and instead eats only raw foods. By virtue of necessity, this turns out to be a vegetarian diet and can even be vegan if one gives up dairy products as well. The pros seem to be quick weight loss and a reduction in sodium and cholesterol levels. The cons are a lack of certain essential nutrients obtained almost solely through animal products, such as certain proteins and fats; the need to eat a whole lot more than one ordinarily eats to maintain weight rather than lose it; and a whole lot of prep time to make juices or otherwise prepare the raw foods in a pleasing palatable fashion.
The focus of yesterday's interview itself was "how cooking made us human", and the raw food diet issue was addressed specifically in answer to a caller's question. The general impression I got from the interview and from the subsequent internet research was that a diet of strictly raw food would not be a good idea over an extended period of time, or as a way of life. But for brief stretches of time, it might be good as a cleansing or detoxing regimen. So I'm considering giving it a go during the week that spouse is gone, albeit in a modified fashion. I can eat big salads for lunch and dinner; oats or other cereal and a boiled egg for breakfast; raw veggies such as carrots and cucumber for snackies, as well as fresh fruit; and my usual (store-bought) fruit juices and dairy products like milk or cheese tossed in there for good measure. JuicePlus should keep me from losing out on most nutrients.
Articles:
From WebMD.
From about.com.
From LiveScience.
From Steve Pavlina's blog.
From the Diet Library.
